COPA links roundup

I doubt there's anyone who reads my blog who doesn't already
know what I think on the various topics. But since it is incumbent on me to pundit about the
"Children's Internet Protection Act" - COPA decision,
I'll round up a few pointers for my obligatory post.

Note the opinion wasn't a surprise. Nothing is certain, but it was
highly expected to turn out as it did, given an earlier similar ruling
by the same judge, and encouragement there by the Supreme Court. This
round was basically a refresh of the evidence in the record, and
nothing much changed there.

Today brings excellent news for free speech: A court declared the
Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a federal Internet censorship law,
unconstitutional, and forbade the government from enforcing it. It
has taken nearly a decade of litigation -- we first brought the suit in
1998, then called ACLU v. Reno.-- and two trips to the Supreme Court to
achieve this result, so this victory for online free speech is
especially sweet.

For "opposition research", it's also important to note what the
censors have to say in reaction, e.g. Morality
in Media:

"But even assuming that every parent with one or more computers in the
home used [censorware] at all times on each computer and even assuming that
[censorware] blocked all pornography and could not be circumvented by
tech-savvy children, there would still be a huge problem -- namely, as
children get older they increasingly have access to the Internet
outside the home.

Lessig has his "HTM"proposal. I earlier sent him email with some extensive
thoughts regarding it. I'll probably pass on a detailed comment or blog
conversation. I can say things in private email about matters of
history and free-speech politics that would be dangerous to put in a
public posting. Tell it to the ACLU.

HTML
The value of a common document language has been so enormous that HTML has gained a dominance on the Web, but it does not play a fundamental key role. Web applications are required to be able to process HTML, as it is the connective tissue of the Web, but it has no special place architecturally.

Professor Lessig needs to zoom down to the 50K foot level—because Congress won't.

If his proposal is seriously considered, the politicians are likely to write <h2m> into XSLT, DOM, and WSDL.